Her father was Gerald Gould, a civil servant with the Foreign Office,[1] and her mother was the pianist Evelyn Suart.
She was tall for a ballerina of that time[3] (5 feet 8 inches (173 cm), and a tendency to clumsiness led to the nickname "Clumsina".
[2] The same bad luck happened with Anna Pavlova, who said that Diana was the only English dancer she'd seen who "had a soul".
She appeared with Antony Tudor in Atalanta of the East and The Planets, and with Ninette de Valois in Bar aux Folies-Bergère.
[4] Having closed the door on international opportunities, she worked for a time with the Alicia Markova-Anton Dolin company in 1935.
[8] They married at the Chelsea Registry Office on 19 October 1947,[9] seventeen days after his divorce from Nola had become final.
Yehudi's career became Diana's main purpose from then on, although she often experienced "agonising nostalgia" for her life as a dancer.
[1] As she wrote in Fiddler's Moll, "If one performing artist marries another, it is obvious that one of the two must dissolve his or her persona in the other".
[1] She was very protective of him (she was known for her sharp tongue), and devoted her life to creating a perfect environment for the expression of his talent.
Although it was difficult to leave their children in the care of others, she felt her duty to be with Yehudi and organise his affairs was more important.
His appearances were planned two years in advance, and Diana would spend up to 17 hours a day organising his paperwork and travel arrangements.